Searching additional data sets when adding constituents

0 votes

I feel like I've seen information on this topic somewhere but I'm coming up empty.

We'd like to be able to allow searching a separate dataset for a constituent if they are not found in CRM.

In our case, if a gift from an employee comes in and the gift entry person enters their employee id, either from a gift or constituent batch, (which is stored in an Alternate Lookup ID), if they aren't found, then we'd like them to be able to easily add the employee as a constituent from a separate custom table.

I'm pretty sure we could create custom forms to achieve this, but I feel like I heard something like this referenced that it might not be quite as invasive. Am I imagining this? Has anyone done this sort of thing?